I absolutely cannot believe that it is already October! Time has been FLYING this year. Yet, as much as I think a break from all this busyness would be welcome, I sit here and see the devastation in Appalachia and Florida. I see friends and family going through illness, grief, and strife. I remind myself to be grateful for having my family, my home, my job, and just my life--as busy and chaotic as it is--as usual.

There are so many in our country, our community, and our individual tribes who need support. I hope you join me in working hard to adopt a grateful heart; helping where we can with our time, talent, or treasure; and lifting others up in their time of need. Having those conversations with or modelling those actions for our children is so important in building empathy, humility, and a servant's heart in them. They watch as we donate for relief efforts. Make food to take to a family who lost a loved one. Stop to visit or do chores for someone who may need a hug or hand. They watch. They listen. And, they become.

- Kim Hiatt, Superintendent

Please take a moment to complete this survey as we work on our 2025-2026 calendar. We hope to adopt at our November Board meeting. Thank you for giving us your feedback!

ALL DISTRICT

• Fall Break--October 21-25, No School. We apologize for having to close B.E.S.T. childcare for that week, but we have to shut the water down to campus in order to repair a leaking water line. We do hope everyone has a relaxing and restful break!
• Flex Day #2--November 1st--No school or eLearning for students. Staff engage in professional development for the day.

BES/BMS

• Parent/Teacher Conferences @ BES/BMS, October 16th, 3:30-6:30 p.m.--If you haven't scheduled an appointment with your child's elementary teacher, please reach out so that they may get a time set up for you.
  
• Scholastic Book Fair, October 14-18th--Students will be visiting the book fair during class time. There were catalogs of some items sent ahead of time. If you wish your child to purchase books and other things available, please send money with your child. Your child's teacher will be letting you know the day they are going.

BHS

• Career Fair, November 8th, 8 a.m.-12 p.m.--BHS hosts one of the best career fairs in our area. We have 80+ different businesses, organizations, trade unions, trade schools, and colleges represented. Our guidance counselors and staff do a great job making this experience meaningful by prepping students on questions to ask and talking about how to best represent oneself to a potential employer. Several students have found summer and even permanent jobs through this program. This event also fulfills the new graduation requirement for students to participate in career discovery meeting, so it is NOT an optional day.
  
• Veteran's Day Program, November 8th, 2:00 p.m., BHS Theater--This year, the high school is hosting another event for which it is well-known on the afternoon of Career Fair. Our Topics in History class and Social Studies department take this event very seriously and work hard to meaningfully honor those who gave or were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. The community is welcome to attend. Please enter through the main high school doors.
• Senior/Grandparent Breakfast, November 22nd, BHS--More information will be coming out about this first ever event in a few weeks, but we are working hard to get more parents and community in the buildings this year. That is harder in the high school arena to accomplish, but our high school administration thought this event would be so fun and such a memorable experience for the students and grandparents alike.

In addition to improving the overall quality of our communications, increasing our presence on all platforms, and providing more opportunities for our families to engage with school, one of our priorities in this area is to increase our acknowledgement of students, staff, and alumni. Here are some ways we have been working to grow our recognition of all the different stakeholders in our district.

• Students of the Month--In grades K-12, we identify students from each grade each month who exemplify our core values and school-wide expectations. Check out September's honorees!
• North Star Awards--At the district level, we recognize at Board meetings those students who have an achievement that can be somehow related to qualifying for at least a State level competition.
• Teacher of the Month--Each building also honors a Teacher of the Month. Students and colleague can nominate a teacher.
• Classified Staff of the Month--We also allow the district to nominate a classified staff person of the month. These bus drivers, paraprofessionals, maintenance crew, grounds staff, food service workers, secretaries, and custodians are often the unsung heroes of what make our organizations run.
• Be BRAVES Awards--These are district level awards for school staff who have gone above and beyond in some way to help youth, our school, or the larger community.
• Dreamcatcher Awards--We've also been working to honor alumni at Board meetings who have gone and distinguished themselves in the world (or their small corner of it). These folks are more difficult for us to know about as they are not in our day-to-day lives. So, we're asking if you know of an alum whom you think should be considered for this award, please take a moment and fill out this form to nominate him or her.
• We are also working on developing a Wall of Honor to recognize individuals who would meet criteria to have a spot in a permanent digital display in all the schools. It will be a slow process, but one that we are committed to get off the ground in the next two years.

From the last couple legislative sessions, some priorities regarding the instructional side of education have emerged:

1. Ensuring students are reading by the end of 3rd grade;
2. Redesigning ILEARN;
3. Rethinking High School; and
4. Improving students' digital literacy skills.

In this edition, I want to take a moment to do a deeper dive into the changes in testing at the different grade levels. There are lots of moving parts to these changes, and the Department of Education is trying to figure out some things as they go along in response to some really big changes in legislation in the last couple years. All this goes to say, there will likely be on-going changes and refinements as things are piloted and gaps and omissions are identified. I would encourage everyone to go to the section related to your student's age so you may have a better understanding of what to expect with your child and their testing this year.

Statistics tell us that if a student fails to be proficient with basic literacy strategies by the end of 3rd grade, he will likely struggle throughout his academic career. So, the strong push to improve and emphasize reading in the primary grades began several years ago. And, it is only gaining steam and getting more "teeth" as it goes. Here are some ways literacy instruction and testing is different starting this year.

• Universal Screener--To identify students who may have some gaps or struggles in reading earlier, all students in kindergarten through second grade will take this screener assessment each year. Those results are shared with parents. The results are used to determine interventions.
• Increase Times to Take IREAD--Historically, IREAD had only been given to 3rd graders until last year. In order to give students multiple opportunities to take the test and to receive interventions on the areas in which they struggle, all second graders will now take IREAD. Students who pass the test in second grade do not have to test any more. Those who do not will receive additional supports in the school year and in a summer intensive booster program.
• More Targeted Interventions--Whether through the screener, IREAD, or teacher observation, students who are struggling with reading have the opportunity for multiple extra time, extra help interventions in their primary years. Some remediation can happen in the classroom setting. Our Title I teachers push into primary classrooms at different time to support the teacher in whole class instruction in different skills and then pull out students who show some deficits in different skills to work with them in small groups. Some students may be referred to MTSS for more targeted monitoring.
• Summer Booster Programs--Students who need more time to reach their reading goals should participate in summer booster programs wherein they can get more intensive help before having another opportunity to take IREAD at the end of the booster program.

If a student reaches the end of their third grade year and has been unable to pass IREAD, State law now requires them to be retained in 3rd grade unless they meet what is called a Good Cause Exemption (GCE). Those exemptions are:

• The student has already been retained in 3rd grade;
• The student has an intellectual disability and the Case Conference Committee decides retention will not benefit the student;
• The student is an English Learner (EL) who has received EL services less than two years;
• The student scored Proficient or Above Proficient on ILEARN Math; or
• The student has received intensive interventions in Science of Reading strategies and has been retained more than once during grades K-2.

One thing we want to encourage all parents is to NOT PANIC. I realize as a mom of a first grader that this is scary. But, I would also remind everyone that we have had a great deal of success in getting students to pass IREAD. We have your child's and your back! As a way to partner with you to help your child succeed, we also wanted to provide some ideas of things you may want to try at home to support your student. Check these out below!

1. Read with your child every day. Talk about the book. Ask questions. Practice identifying sight words and sounding out words.

2. Review with your child the vocabulary work your child's teacher sends home.

• RED words are very important for your child to memorize. These are their sight words. They should not be sounding them out. Do things to review as often as possible how to say, spell, and write these words. Don't forget to throw in older "red" words, too, so they don't forget.
• Click here for some ideas of different activities to practice RED words at home--Hint--It's not all flashcards and write them 10 times each like when we were in school😄
• Click here for more ideas!

• GREEN words are examples of the phonics skill they are working on. These words are NOT to be memorized because they should be able to sound them out. Check that they understand the phonics skill on a couple of the words and can blend their letter sounds to make a word. The bookmark at right is a great resource for parents on how to help their children with sounding out words.

ILEARN has historically been given at the end of year. Basically, you got it or you didn't and then school was out. The State realized this model of testing wasn't really accomplishing much as far as improving student skills. So, they have been redesigning the test since 2022 and are rolling it out in a pilot this year. Bellmont has opted into that pilot along with 70% of other schools in Indiana.

In State Director of Education Katie Jenner's words, "The redesigned assessment will have three Checkpoints and a shortened summative assessment at the end of the school year. These checkpoints are not punitive in any way and will be used to guide student learning."

Our elementary and middle school students took this first checkpoint this past week. The tests were not long, and we are eager to see what kind of data we glean from this first checkpoint. The goal would be to find any gaps in learning, and then correct them as we go through remediation, reteaching, and targeted interventions.

Our high school students in Grades 9-11 took the PSAT last Wednesday. The PSAT, or Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), is a standardized assessment given through College Board and co-sponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). This test serves as a practice test for the SAT, giving high school staff good data on areas we need to help students improve before they take the SAT as juniors. To prepare for this test, our high school staff have been engaging students who will be taking PSAT in English and Math "boot camps" to hit some key skills and test-taking strategies in the last month.

The SAT is another standardized assessment through College Board, and it has served as Indiana's Graduation Qualifying Exam since 2022. It is given to all juniors in March and consists of two parts--Reading/Writing and Math. Bellmont has a voluntary SAT prep course it runs through homeroom throughout the year. Students who are college-bound and want help getting their SAT scores to a point that will be admissible to their desired college or program are encouraged to participate.

Once students take the SAT at school, they'll be able to access their scores through their College Board account.

Here is a short presentation that describes how public schools are funded in Indiana. If you want to learn a little more about school finance and the Education Fund, specifically, take a look at the presentation below. Future presentations will cover Operations and Debt Service Funds and how they impact property taxes.

In this category, our strategies are centered around providing students opportunities, experiences, and programming to grow their resiliency, citizenship, work ethic, literacies, and post-secondary readiness.

In this edition, I will share a little about PBiS matrix and some school safety information.

This strategic priority involves the things that go into positive teaching and learning: facilities, transportation, food service, technology, procedures, safety, etc. In this edition, we will briefly visit some of the things that have been happening around campus and talk about some upcoming projects and needs.